I just read the book, and on page 80, it is said that Ascender 100 would fly on fall 2008. I checked tha blog, and the latest news were that it would fly on Summer 2011. The summer ended. What happened?

The outer envelope, the propellers are done. We're half way through the air beam keel. Our next step is the upper deck internal structures. We ended up doing two commercial programs that both delayed Ascender 100 but also made enough money to pay for it all. However then the recession hit and sucked the bank dry just staying afloat. Sometimes you just can't win.

We shifted to engine development over the past year. The operational costs are much lower. The commercial work is starting to slooooowly pick up so we can refocus on more mainline vehicle like DSS and Ascender.

In a project like this you end up like a boxer in the ring. A lot of duck and weave and shifting on the fly just to stay in the game.